South Africans can now use Mastercard’s Masterpass digital wallet to pay for goods and services at more than 30,000 merchants accepting SnapScan in South Africa, using their mobile phones by scanning a QR code at… More

McDonald’s South Africa is piloting a mobile payment service at select restaurants in Johannesburg and Cape Town using social messaging app WeChat Africa, enabling customers to complete purchases by presenting QR codes generated by the… More

China is leading the US when it comes to mobile commerce, with nearly twice as many Chinese consumers making a mobile purchase over the previous 12 months than their American counterparts, a study by the… More

Half of banking customers around the world are using the products or services of at least one fintech firm, according to the first World FinTech Report (WFTR) from Capgemini and LinkedIn, but customer trust in… More

Alipay has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Commonwealth Bank of Australia to enable in-store and online payments for Chinese tourists in Australia. “The two companies will work together to make it easier for Australian consumers to pay for purchases made through Alibaba Group’s ecommerce websites,” the bank says. “Commonwealth Bank and Alipay will also work together on a simple payment solution that allows Chinese tourists and Chinese students to use Alipay in-store,” enabling Alipay as a payment option through the bank’s Albert smart payment terminals.

An update to the EMV 3-D Secure specification means both biometrics and one-time passcodes can now be used to add security to card-not-present transactions. “The new specification provides a globally interoperable framework that promotes a consistent consumer experience across all ecommerce channels and connected devices when authenticating a cardholder,” payments standards body EMVCo says. The EMV 3DS 2.0 specification can be downloaded, royalty free, from the EMVCo website.

Visa is allowing third-party partners to offer its Visa Token Service (VTS) platform, allowing device manufacturers, issuers, internet of things developers, wallet providers, merchants and others to offer its digital payment service on any device…. More

In-store mobile payments have experienced a “long and difficult road” but the functionality is now starting to resonate with consumers, PayPal’s EVP and chief operating officer Bill Ready has told attendees during a keynote at Money20/20…. More

PARTNER NEWS: The Geantet-Pansiot vineyard estate in Burgundy, France is to equip all of its wine bottles with an NFC tag to let its customers authenticate the beverage and receive information about the wine directly on their smartphone. More

Merchants with online stores powered by ecommerce platform Shopify will be able to accept Apple Pay for online payments in every country at no extra cost. “You can enable Apple Pay if you’re using Shopify Payments or these other payment gateways — Stripe, Braintree, FirstData, Payeezy, Authorize.Net or CyberSource,” Shopify says. “To activate, simply go to your payment settings in Shopify and click Activate under the Apple Pay section.” Apple announced its plans to take Apple Pay to the web at WWDC earlier this week.

Amazon has launched the Amazon Payments Partner Program, a new service designed to enable ecommerce platform providers and developers to offer merchants Amazon Payments, which allows customers to log in and pay using their account with the online retail giant. “The program is free to participate in and available by invitation in the US, Germany, UK and Japan,” Amazon says.

Supporters of cancer charity Institut Curie can make donations to its annual Une Jonquille pour Curie (A daffodil for Curie) campaign and purchase a daffodil or a pin by touching their contactless cards against specially adapted advertising screens at France’s Paris Saint-Lazare train station. More

PARTNER NEWS: Bell ID has added support for Android Pay to its Token Service Provider (TSP) solution, allowing its customers at issuing banks, payment schemes and processors to keep tokenization and detokenization in-house when they offer secure NFC payments on Android phones using Google’s payment system. More

Chinese ecommerce giant Tencent is testing its WeChat Wallet service with users in Hong Kong. “Users who are part of the pilot programme will be able to link their Hong Kong credit cards to the service and purchase items using the WeChat app, including movie and flight tickets,” the South China Morning Post reports. “A source close to the company said it may take several months before the payment service is rolled out to all WeChat users in the city.” WeChat Wallet launched in South Africa in November 2015.

US consumers will soon be able to place grocery orders with online grocer FreshDirect and supermarket chain ShopRite by entering the items they wish to purchase into a touchscreen built into Samsung’s new Family Hub refrigerator. More

More than 10m consumers have now opted in to PayPal’s One Touch mobile payments solution. “PayPal is processing millions of One Touch transactions each month,” the company says. “More than 50% of the Internet Retailer 500 and more than 1m merchants around the world have One Touch enabled.” PayPal unveiled One Touch in August 2014 and expanded the service to 13 markets in August 2015.

Xbox One gamers across the US can now make online purchases from the game console’s new ecommerce store by scanning on-screen barcodes with their mobile device. TV commerce solutions provider Von Bismark has worked with Powa Technologies to roll out The Mall on Xbox One, which will make use of Powa’s mobile payments platform PowaTag. More